Facebook has withdrawn its news-reading app Paper from the iOS app store and will terminate supporting its existing downloads on July 29. A parting “Thank You” message is currently displayed in its app for its users to see.
The app, which was formulated to be a “mobile” version of a daily newspaper or magazine, debuted in January 2014 as an alternative to Facebook’s ordinary app, which serves articles to users instead of pure news feed from friends and pages, according to reports from tech news sites The Verge and Engadget.
Last year, the tech giant also canceled Creative Labs, the start-up behind Paper. In an unfortunate domino effect, Paper was not even part of the 1,500 most-downloaded apps since December 2014, and it was never incorporated into Android and iPad. Another possible reason for its halt is that most of Paper’s components are found in other Facebook apps, such as Instant Articles. Ben Cunningham, one of Paper’s brilliant engineers, resigned after three and a half years of working with Facebook, according to Tech Crunch.
“We know that Paper really resonated with you–the people who used it–so we’ve tried to take the best aspects of it and incorporate them into the main Facebook app,” the notice read.
“Our goal with Paper was to explore new immersive, interactive design elements for reading and interacting with content on Facebook, and we learned how important these elements are in giving people an engaging experience,” the notice added. Gianna Francesca Catolico